“She likes me,” he said. “I mean, I can tell. But she’s always thinking about the pack.”

“You think maybe she’s more focused on Alcide than on you?” That was what I was getting from Sam’s head. Maybe I was being too blunt, though. Sam flushed.

“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted.

“She’s a great enforcer, and she was real excited to get the job,” I said. I wondered if that had come out neutral enough.

“She was,” he said.

“You seem to like strong women.”

He smiled. “I do like strong women, and I’m not afraid of the different ones. Run-of-the-mill just doesn’t cut it with me.”

I smiled back at him. “I can tell. I don’t know what to say about Jannalynn, Sam. She’d be an idiot not to appreciate you. Single, self-supporting, good looking? And you don’t even pick your teeth at the table! What’s not to love?” I took a deep breath, because I was about to change the subject and I didn’t want to offend my boss. “Hey, Sam, about that website you visit? You think you could find out about why I’m feeling more fairy after hanging out with my fairy relatives? I mean, I couldn’t actually be changing into more of a fairy, right?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Sam said, after a fraught moment. “But let’s try asking your bunk buddies. They ought to cough up any information that would help you. Or I could beat it out of them.”

He was serious.

“They’ll tell me.” I sounded more sure of that than I felt.

“Where are they now?” he asked.

“By this time, they’ve gone to the club,” I said, after a glance at my watch. “They get all their business done before the club opens.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Sam said. “Kennedy was opening for me today, and you’re not on until tonight, right?”

“Right,” I said, discarding my plans for the afternoon, which hadn’t been very urgent to start with. If we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, we couldn’t reach Monroe until one thirty, but I could make it home in time to change for work. After I’d ordered, I excused myself. While I was in the ladies’ room, my cell phone rang. I don’t answer my phone while I’m in a bathroom. I wouldn’t like to be talking to someone and hear a toilet flush, right? Since the restaurant was noisy, I stepped outside to return the call after a wave at Sam. The number seemed faintly familiar.

“Hey, Sookie,” said Remy Savoy. “How you doing?”

“Good. How’s my favorite little boy?” Remy had been married to my cousin Hadley, and they’d had a son, Hunter, who would be starting kindergarten in the fall. After Katrina, Remy and Hunter had moved to the little town of Red Ditch, where Remy had gotten a job working at a lumberyard through the good services of a cousin.

“He’s doing good. He’s trying hard to follow your rules. I wonder if I could ask a favor?”